How to build your authority as a writer: 9 proven ways

Modern marketing has evolved over the last decades, and it’s nearly impossible to imagine a marketing strategy without blogging. Therefore, marketers attract bloggers to write savvy and interesting content as it helps to expand the audience and build trust. And more often than not, a writer should establish a community of readers, but how to do it?

Importance of building authority

Building authority is an important thing in standing out as a writer. If you know how to improve your online influence, it’s more likely you can succeed in writing, and here is how to do it. Proficient writers put their readers first. They know the importance of helping them solve their problems, and having something to say is a crucial task for an experienced writer. However, no matter how experienced a writer you are, you need to work on building your authority online in order to become an opinion leader and, therefore, attract more readers and grow revenue.

If you’re ready to create your brand as a self-published author, you should forget about plagiarizing someone’s ideas once and for all. A good writer is a person who knows how to create useful and thoughtful content, sharing his expertise in the niche. After all, having a strong online reputation helps to grow your community of readers and run a lucrative business in the writing niche.

Here are 9 ideas for how to build authority as a writer:

1. Craft useful content only

Before launching your first book, think about building authority. The more online readers you have, the more book promotion you get. The more popular your book is, the more new readers you attract. It seems that it’s an eternal circle, and you’re 100% right.

And a logical question appears, how to not only grab audience’s attention but hold it as well? The answer is simple: craft useful content only.

If you run your blog, you can achieve the following goals:

Master your writing skills

Create your audience

Build your authority

Sounds like having your blog is a number one remedy to become a successful writer, but you won’t become influential online unless you publish useful content on a regular basis. So, do research, analyze your audience’s needs, and think about them while writing your blog post.

Moreover, if you publish good and relevant content, you can improve your Google rank, so more and more readers can find you whilst surfing the Internet to find actionable tips and pieces of advice.

2. Put your readers first

It might be obvious that writing for readers is your crucial task as a writer. Although some people believe that ranking your website high can help you achieve success, there is no better way to grow your community than be useful for readers. If you have real fans, they would never forget you: sharing your articles and announcements, you can expand the audience in an organic way.

Building relationships with your readers is worth trying as it helps you succeed in growing influence. Listen to their feedback, share their ideas, reply to their emails, and mention them if it’s possible. Build better relations with your readers to become a better writer, and they will suggest you as the best expert in the niche.

3. Go hand-in-hand with trends

Everyone knows that there is nothing new under the sun, but chasing modern trends is a way to stay up-to-date and set new trends. If you think outside the box, offering alternative solutions to some problems, you can build the reputation. However, it doesn’t mean you should be obsessed over making up ideas. It will be enough to work in the field of your interest and dig into details and find out new aspects of a problem.
Although you believe that a good writer should be good at writing, he should also be modern in his tips and pieces of advice as even an evergreen piece of content needs updates from time to time.

4. Combine online and offline presence

Living in the digital era, most writers forget about printed books and the role of offline presence in building the reputation. If you believe that making offline events with your readers doesn’t work now, think twice before quit it. Successful marketers insist on combing online and offline strategies as it helps to expand your audience and use alternative sources to attract more readers.

5. Collaborate with other influential people

Every reliable writer has his audience that read his articles and listens to pieces of advice. Thus, collaborating with influential people, whose audience might be interested in your product or service, is a good way to attract more readers and build trust. You can write guest posts to share your expertise, exchange feedback, or mention each other on your site.

Even if you’re just getting started with writing, it’s high time to contact writing gurus to build relations with them later: comment on their posts, share their articles, and write them what you’ve found useful. It’s the first step toward collaboration, so give it a try.

6. Develop an actionable case study

To become a thought leader in your niche, it isn’t enough to write mediocre articles. You need to share your achievements and use real examples, data, and strategies that worked for you. Thus, once you have a case study, write a detailed post, explaining your success.

Even if you won’t help people repeat your achievement, it’s more likely you can boost their inspiration and grow your trust as an experienced writer knows what to offer.

7. Expand your audience

No matter what your niche is, you have an opportunity to expand your audience online. If you want to stand out as an expert, never limit yourself: let your readers decide whether they are interested in your content or not. Find where to get the audience that might like your content, and adapt it to their interests. For example, if you write about a tool that eradicates adverbs, you can share your piece with students, teachers, writers, marketers, and other people who should improve the writing skills. The bigger your audience is, the more value you get.

8. Promote your content

If you want to build authority, you need to be able to show your readers what you’ve done. Promoting your content is essential if you want your content to be seen by the audience you created it for. Here are some ideas for how to promote your work:

Announce the launch of your work – use your social media profiles to let your audience know about your works: write a short teaser and insert a link to your article once it goes alive.

Email marketing – to avoid ‘spam’ mark, personalize your email to grab more attention: title your email, add a name of a receiver, and ask for a feedback.

Share links in comments – if you have found a relevant article and you have something relevant to share, insert a link in the comment section.

Promotion is an important part of building authority, so never skip it on the way to success.

9. Become an educator

Once you become an expert in your niche, and you have something to say, don’t hesitate to become an educator and drive more traffic to your website. As online education is getting more popular among modern people rapidly, it’s your chance to help people obtain knowledge, sitting at home. Host webinars or become an MOOC educator to prove your expertise.

You generate more belief if you’re an educator as people trust you. So, teaching someone can be a key to building authority, too.

Wrapping it up

As a writer, you might want to have many readers who share your views and ideas. It’s the way to grow your personal value and earn more as an expert writer has good sells. Thus, building authority is a crucial task if writing is not just a hobby. Make the most out of being a writer right now!

How do you build authority? Share your tips with us in the comments!

And if you’d like to get great tips to improve your SEO rankings, you should read this eBook!

About the Author

Andrew Howe is a student who puts self-development first. Being fond of writing and learning languages, he has crafted Adverbless tool to help people understand how to use adverbs in order not to weaken the prose. He is a sociable person, so don't hesitate to email him or follow him on Twitter.